How can a man start out luminous
and end up a smudge? How can you see a river
in the mirror then wipe away the steam
and there’s a rock? The voice in the head
sways congress but comes out breach,
a Monday morning falls on Friday eve
like a comet made of darkness. I am
a tree, the ember keeps telling itself
so maybe you don’t have to listen
to what the fire says even if you build it,
gather the sticks after the windstorm,
crumble up the sports section, feed it yourself.
But why’s my mind a celestial chariot
waking then a worm under corn husk
by afternoon? Maybe by night, woven
in a silk denial of itself, it’ll morph
into a winged, already half-dust thing
and rise to some new oblivion or,
singed, fall for frogs to finish off.
So little light gets through even though
there’s almost nothing to me
but what a relief, the kind a ghost
must feel after the initial shock
of sparks flying through without a sting,
walking into walls without feeling a thing,
then the cold resignation of never
being touched again.